GAUVIN: Proposed sewer funding options ready for first reading in council

Written by Paul Gauvin

June 11, 2010

Town Councilor Tom Rugo says his vote approving the Stewart’s Creek sewerage project when it was presented at the 11th hour of a council meeting was “the worst, most regrettable” vote he ever made on the council. You might say he’s been looking toward redemption since.

He and other councilors will get the chance to redeem on June 17 and thereafter when the 13-member body gets a first reading of three proposals aimed at more equitably funding wastewater projects in town, including the ongoing Stewart’s Creek initiative in Hyannis.

It’s a big deal for all taxpayers considering long-term plans involve spending $265 million over the years to assure potable drinking water and cleaner estuaries and bays.

But forget a proposed administration option, among others, to cap the betterment tax part of funding by homeowners at $10,000, now and into the future.

It appears the best that can be hoped for at this point is a 50-percent betterment. Some 10 administration options were devised after a public outcry by affected Stewart’s Creek residents clearly illustrated some of them would be at risk of losing their homes over an unexpected outlay that could spill over the $30,000 mark per home.

The council formed a sub-committee to study and select options for consideration by the full council, which should begin next week with a first reading, subsequent hearings and debate.

Rugo, committee chair, has been unable to forge a committee consensus. The only unanimous vote out of that panel has been on a motion by Cotuit Councilor Rick Barry to adopt the local-option motel tax of 2 percent and 0.75 percent meals tax; the latter one even Rugo was reluctant to support.

“I kept thinking of local households where the circumstance is that couples both work and go out to eat often,” he said. This puts another burden on them, albeit the intent is to yield a bit more cash out of tourists to help pay for what they also use by way of non-toxic beaches, ponds and drinking water.

As to the $10,000 betterment cap option, Rugo said it wouldn’t be fair since $10,000 today won’t be the same as $10,000 in ten years due to inflation, when future wastewater projects are implemented.

Another administration wastewater option that would have included a revolving fund for road repairs in a broad spending package was rejected by the committee.

Each of the two other options the committee wants the full council to explore require a 50-percent betterment from affected property owners and differ only in the dependence on property taxes.

A plan proposed by Rugo and adopted on a 4-3 vote for presentation to the full council would require, besides the 50-percent betterment and motel and meals tax, a $3.5 million increase in the property tax levy, requiring a first-year increase of $81 in the property tax payment on a median ($311,000) home, increasing steadily to $130 in 20 years.

Barnstable Village Councilor Ann Canedy, whose constituency apparently rejects paying for a wastewater betterment not in the village, could live with an option that requires the new motel and meals tax, the 50 percent betterment and using $950,000 from operating funds, with no property tax increase.

The vote Rugo laments was taken in the 11th hour of a council meeting when Councilor Greg Milne, prodded by Town Manager John Klimm’s administration, proposed out of the blue that the Stewart’s Creek sewerage project be more than 90 percent funded by a betterment tax levied on affected homeowners, without first warning homeowners.

With tie-in and other costs, it meant homeowners faced a roughly $30,000 tab to help improve everybody’s water supply.

One way to experience the observation that you can please some people sometimes but not everybody all the time is to serve on a government panel like the Town Council. Public officials are expected to please every voter all the time, just as a mere mortal like President Obama was expected to plug the Gulf oil leak with pliers and Scotch tape then soak up the residue with a sponge before any damage was done.

The Stewart’s Creek project was ill-timed, poorly and stealthily presented given the economic climate, but is nonetheless under way, past the point of no return.

Now the council needs to get itself out of the financial conundrum in the knowledge that no matter what it chooses, it is too late to please everybody. But the council does hold some sway as to which constituency will be the least pleased when it makes a funding decision.